Besicovitch triangles cover unit arcs (Q884772)

The authors resolve a long standing conjecture of \textit{A. S. Besicovitch} [Math. Gaz. 49, 286--288 (1965; Zbl 0134.40604)] which says that the equilateral triangle with side length \(\sqrt{28/27}\) is a ``worm-cover''. This means that this triangle contains an isometric copy of any rectifiable arc of length 1. It is shown that this conjecture is true and moreover there is a class of isosceles triangles (including the above equilateral triangle) such that each triangle from the class is a worm-cover. It is also shown that each of these triangles is the smallest worm-cover in its similarity class. The extremal arcs are z-shaped centrally symmetric polygonal arcs consisting of three segments of equal length.